Attribute of the Strong
by Phreakycat
Summary: Five times Dean forgave Sam, and one time he didn't.


Title: Attribute of the Strong  
Author: Phreakycat  
Rating: PG  
Genre: 5 and 1, angst, H/C, character study  
Warnings: Spoilers up to the end of season 4, canon character death (temporary)  
Summary: Five times Dean forgave Sam, and one time he didn't.

A/N: I've been sorting through my WIPs folder on my computer in an effort to complete and post some of the myriad of half-done stories I have cluttering up my HD. Imagine my surprise when I found this little one-shot, already complete. I have no idea why I didn't post it when I first finished it, but there's no time like the present, right? This is just a little character study/five-and-one. It's fairly angsty (as seems to be my wont) but there is a hopeful ending. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, including con-crit. This is unbeta'd, so any and all mistakes are my own.

Dean's been forgiving Sam their entire lives.

It starts with a mother's soft gaze on the new baby's face, the way Daddy cups Sammy's peach-like little head with his big, gentle hand, and the hurt of a little boy that is no longer the sole center of his family's universe. But Dean is a good boy, with a stout little heart custom-made to carry the weight of brotherhood. So when Mary carefully sets Sammy into Dean's waiting arms, there is instant forgiveness for the trespass of changing the precious geometry of their family.

Sammy gurgles, wide, startled eyes gazing at Dean's face with some sort of awe. Like Dean is the sun. Like Dean is the thing he's been waiting to see since he first opened his eyes.

Daddy is sleeping and won't wake up, and Sammy is crying. Crying, and crying, and _crying_, and Dean doesn't know what to do. He reaches through the bars of the crib and tries to pat Sammy on the back, the way he saw his Mommy do once, before she was gone. But Sammy just wails and wriggles away from his hand, like he's angry at Dean. Dean knows that he shouldn't cry – he's a big boy now and big boys don't cry – but the sound of Sammy's cries are tearing through him, settling in his bones and shivering up into his eyes where frightened, angry tears shake free.

He wants his Mommy back. He misses the sweep of her hair across his cheek when she leaned in to kiss him goodnight. He misses the softness of her hip where he'd grip her pocket and press his face when he was tired. And he misses Daddy, the way he was before. When he laughed and tickled and tucked people into bed.

"Stop it!" he shouts at Sammy, rattling the side of the crib. "Shuddup!"

Sammy's crying stutters to a stop for a moment, just before his face scrunches up tighter and he begins to scream again. He clenches and unclenches his tiny toddler fists, face red and frightened. Passed out in the recliner, Daddy pulls his bottle closer and sighs Mommy's name in a tone that makes the middle of Dean's chest ache.

"Day," Sammy hiccups, making grabby hands at Dean, as though Dean can fix all this. "Day!"

Dean doesn't want to be needed. He doesn't want to fix these terrible, grown-up things. But Sammy is too little, and he won't stop crying. Dean's heart constricts a little over the realization that there is no one else to do this, but he wipes his eyes on the sleeves of his Transformers pajamas and lowers the side of the crib. Sammy holds out chubby arms to be picked up, and Dean obliges. His brother's narrow chest hitches against Dean's, his face wet and hot against Dean's neck. Dean hugs Sammy close, pressing his cheek to the top of Sammy's head.

The soft, curly hair under his cheek smells like baby shampoo and honey, and the hard knot of uncertainty in Dean's belly unknots some. Sammy gives a big, sleepy sigh and wiggles closer to Dean, popping a thumb into his mouth and sucking contentedly.

Dean smiles, a moment of peace and purpose, and the resentment slips away.

"I'm sorry, Dean," Sammy says tremulously. He's holding Dean's knife, the one Dad gave him for his birthday. The once-smooth, meticulously cared-for wood of the handle is cracked. _Destroyed_. Sam's cupped fingers twitch nervously as Dean takes the weapon from his outstretched hands. Dean's silent for a moment, tracing the rift with one steady forefinger.

"I told you not to touch my shit, Sam," he says finally, his voice quiet and dangerous, like the sound his knife used to make, slipping from its sheath.

"I know," Sam says, shifting from foot to foot. "I just-"

"Just what, Sam?" Dean shouts. Sam flinches and lowers his gaze. "It's one of the _only _god damn things I ask of you! You couldn't let me have one nice thing, after all of the crap I've given up for you?"

"I'm sorry," Sam says, voice thickening. "I'm sorry."

"Whatever," Dean says, stomping into their shared room and slamming the door behind him. He clenches the broken knife in his fist and breathes hard through his nose. A fine tremor runs down his spine and he squeezes his eyes shut.

He knows he shouldn't be this angry. But Dad had pressed this knife into Dean's unsteady hands after he'd told Dean about all the horrible, flesh-ripping things that lurk in the dark. _Son, _he'd said_, there are awful things out there. But they can die. We can kill them, and I'm going to teach you how.  
_  
Dean had never felt so proud or so terrified as he had in that moment.

Sammy doesn't understand. He doesn't know what this knife means to Dean – how important a weapon it is. Sammy doesn't know about the things that crawl through the night breathing death. Dean doesn't want him to _ever _know.

Sammy doesn't know how important this weapon is because he doesn't know that Dean needs it to protect him. Dean sighs and sets the knife carefully in his dresser drawer, then goes and finds his brother.

Sam is outside on their current rental's narrow excuse for a back porch, picking slivers of rotting wood off the edges of a wide hole in the decking. The smell of damp earth wafts up from the dark hole. Sammy looks at him with eyes like hopeful questions.

"You're getting a friggin' paper route or something and you're paying for a new handle for that knife," Dean says. "And you're doing my chores for a week."

"Okay," Sam nods eagerly. "I will. I promise."

"Oh, I know you will, twerp, 'cause I'll throttle you if you don't."

He settles down beside Sammy and mock-punches him in the shoulder. Sammy chuckles and bats half-heartedly back.

They don't say anything else for a long while. They stay on the porch until the sun slips below the tree-line and a cacophonous chorus of tree frogs erupts from the back yard. Yellow light spills out from the kitchen window above their heads, and Dean can hear their Dad clattering pans and dishes inside as he makes dinner.

Sammy leans his shoulder against Dean, warm and solid in the dark. When Dean presses back, Sam gives him a smile more radiant than even the shifting constellations of fireflies in the yard.

"I'm eighteen, Dad!" Sam shouts, shaking the Stanford acceptance letter in his clenched fist. The expensive looking linen paper is crumpling where Sam's fingers press into it. "You can't control my life anymore!"

"I'm still your father," John says dangerously, "and you have an obligation to this family. To your mother."

Voice caught in his throat, Dean watches Sam's face redden. His guts twist at the mention of their mother, and Dean can't tell if he's more angry at his father for bringing her into this or at Sam, for making John invoke her name. Mother is a sacred prayer in their family, not a weapon.

"I am devoted to this family," Sam hisses, "but that does _not _mean I'm obligated to sacrifice my whole fucking life to a war that we have no hope of ever winning!"

"You're a selfish, ungrateful boy," John says. "How can you walk away from this, from _us_, knowing that people will die because you want to chase some illusion of the American dream? Knowing that your brother or I could die, because you weren't here to have our backs?"

Dean feels numb. He thinks he should probably move or say something, try to derail this catastrophe before something gets said that can't be unsaid, but he's frozen, watching it through glass.

"That's not fair," Sam says through a gritted jaw. His voice shakes and his eyes shimmer. "Don't you dare lay that on me, Dad. Don't you do that to me."

"Tell you the truth? You might not want to hear it, Sam, but if you're going to walk out on us you should at least understand the consequences of what you're doing."

"I'm not walking out on you, Dad! I just – I just want to go to school! I can still help this family. Once I'm a lawyer, I can support you guys, and I can defend you when you run into trouble with the law."

"If you want to help this family, you'll stay right here," John says coldly.

"Dad, can't you see? I can't – I can't do this anymore!"

"Fine," John says, and his voice is cold, the tone he uses for exorcisms. "But if you walk out that door now, don't bother coming back."

"Dad-" Sam says, shocked.

"I mean it, Sam," John says, turning away. Like everything's been decided already. "You go now, you don't come back."

Dean feels like he's breathing ice water – takes a step forward and stares at his father's back.

"Fine," Sam says, voice broken. He throws the crumpled acceptance letter to the floor and stomps down the hall towards their room.

"Dad," Dean says, managing to find a ghost of his voice, "don't do this. Just wait, and let's all talk this over."

"There's nothing to talk about," John says.

"Please-" Dean says, but then Sam storms back through the kitchen, a big green duffle over his shoulder. "Sam, wait."

Sam's angry footsteps falter in front of Dean and he pauses, head down and shoulders up. "I'm sorry, Dean," he whispers. "I have to."

Dean sees his brother shoot a glance at their father's resolute back, then the kitchen door is slamming behind him and he's gone.

John gets a glass out of the cabinet and pulls a fifth of whisky from under the sink. He pours a glass, downs it, and pours another. Dean's heart is hammering against his ribs, and he thinks maybe he knows how people feel just after an earthquake. Everything's been shaken and rearranged around him. The ground feels unsteady, ready to open up under him. Everything's fallen down, but somehow he's still standing in the wreckage.

"Fuck this," he says, choked, and slams through the door after Sam.

He finds him just around the bend in the road, walking between the dark trees with his head down. His face lifts when he hears Dean's boots on the pavement, and even in the dark Dean can see the awful, vulnerable hope in his brother's eyes.

"Dean-" he starts, but Dean just plants his palms on Sam's shoulders and shoves him, hard. Sam goes down on his ass with a surprised grunt.

"Fuck you, Sam," Dean snarls, breathing hard.

"Dean, wait, just-"

"No," Dean says, kicking Sam's dropped duffle. "You listen to me, Sam – don't fucking do this. Don't you walk out on us like this."

Sam's expression shifts from wounded to angry. "I thought you would at least understand," he says softly.

"I understand, all right," Dean says. "I understand that you and Dad are the only two things in this whole cesspool of a world that I give a damn about, that you guys are _all I have_, and you're ripping that apart."

"He's the one who said I can't come back, Dean."

"And you're the one that walked out the fucking door!" Dean shouts.

Sam stares up at him, breathing hard. "It's killing me, Dean," he breathes. "This is _killing me_. I can't do it anymore. I love you. So much. But if I don't get away from all of this…"

Dean wants to tell Sam all of the things about their lives that rips him up inside. All of the aborted dreams and plans he's had to let go of. Everything he's cut out of himself and given to this family. How many times he's wanted to run away, but has stayed.

But he doesn't. He hauls Sam to his feet and presses the duffle against his brother's chest. Sam's arms come up to clutch at the bag, his face sad and confused. Dean digs into his jacket pocket and pulls out all the money he has there, tucks it roughly into the side pocket of Sam's bag, then slips his sheathed knife from the back of his belt and puts it in with the money.

"Dean-"

"Shut up," Dean says. "You might want to walk away from hunting, but you still need to protect yourself."

Sam gulps and takes half a step forward, like he might try to hug Dean. Dean steps back, swallowing thickly. For the second time in Dean's life, his brother is shifting the geometry of their family, but this time he's ripping away the angles, shifting the lines until it's just Dean and John – a flat, dimensionless equation.

"Take care, Sammy," Dean says. "You keep that knife close."

He wants to say _don't go_ and_ I love you, too_ and _I'm proud of you_, but he doesn't. He turns and walks away and all the sounds of the forest go silent, as though they can sense the terrible rift being opened up between brothers.

Just before he turns the bend, Dean looks over his shoulder and sees Sam still standing where he left him, clutching his bag and staring after Dean. The dark road looks like a river, his brother standing between two impossible shores, small and alone. Dean can feel his brother's hurt like a wire stretching between them, and he aches with the pull.

He doesn't look back again. The house looks warm and bright when he turns the bend, but Dean knows all he'll find inside is empty spaces.

Dean forgives Sam for that night. But not for a long time.

When Jake plunges that knife into Sam's spine, Dean swears he feels the pain in his own soul.

Sam drops to his knees like one of those stupid little plastic toys - the ones held up with string tension that collapse when you press in the base of their pedestals. The ones Sammy loved when he was little, when he was young and still unscarred. When he had small sticky hands and dimpled knees – but now his knees are in the mud, and there's blood. Oh, fuck no, oh, God – _Sammy, Sammy, please…  
_  
Sam is hurt, but he's not yelling or writhing or wincing – he's just… limp. Dean is all that's keeping him up, and his little brother's eyes slide around in his sockets blankly. Dean talks to him, saying stupid, nonsense words that do nothing to stem the hot flow of blood from his brother's body. He puts his hand against Sam's wound, his brother's head flopping to rest in the space between his shoulder and neck. He feels the strong pulse of blood coming from the hole in Sam's back - it's pulsing in time with Sam's heartbeat, and it's slowing rapidly. Sam's breath whispers over Dean's neck and goose bumps pop up all over Dean's body.

When he pulls back to look at Sam's face again, his brother's teeth are black with blood and a slow sluice of red dribbles over his bottom lip. Sam blinks slowly, that blank, fading, terrifying look still on his face. Dean's mouth is running and running, but his mind is nothing but a screaming, empty hole that he's falling into. He's falling away inside himself, and Sam is slipping away into an unknown, and neither of them are ever, _ever _going to climb their way out again.

Sam's eyes have closed. His head lolls on his neck. Dean calls his name, strokes his hair, begs. He cups Sam's face in his hands and stares at his brother's slack face, chants Sam's name, but there is no pulse under Dean's fingers, no breath. No Sammy.

Dean clings to his dead brother and tries to press them together, as though he can hold Sam's soul in, feed his heartbeat into Sammy's chest.

_No_, he thinks. _You don't get to leave me again, Sammy.  
_  
He screams his brother's name, rage and grief and the end of the whole fucking world just boiling up inside him and exploding into the night, chasing through the shadows and looking for something that's already gone.

Dean doesn't forgive Sammy for dying until he feels his little brother's heartbeat again.

He doesn't ever forgive himself.

Dean can't forgive Sam this time.

Sam's unleashed Lucifer on the world. He's forged a path to Armageddon and left a trail of broken trust and relationships behind him. Dean doesn't even know how to _begin _wrapping his brain around all that Sam's done. Drinking blood – demon blood. Lying. Sneaking around. Screwing hell skanks and embracing the inhuman part of himself like it's a tool, like it's more than just the weapon that's self-destructing and blowing them all literally to hell.

Beside him in the car, Sam is silent and statue-still. Dean can see the wet glint of Sam's eyes as his brother stares blankly at the road before them. He should say something. Yell, scream, demand an answer. But Dean's throat closes around the words and he doesn't dare break the fragile silence between them.

As it turns out, Sam does it for him.

"Dean," he breathes, "I'm…" His voice trails off with a choked sound. He pulls in a few ragged, uneven breaths and the leather seat creaks under his white-knuckled grip. "Pull over," he begs.

"What? You want me to pull over?" Dean laughs, an ugly, bitter sound. "We're running from the devil, Sam. The fucking king of hell, and you want to make a pit stop?"

Sam curls forward, clasping one wide palm over his mouth and shaking his head frantically. His shoulders heave and he gags, the sound muffled behind his hand but unmistakable.

"Fuck," Dean hisses, swerving the Impala onto the shoulder before he can give it conscious thought. Sam fumbles the door open with his free hand and sort of tumbles out of the car, all long limbs and wretched gagging. Dean grips the steering wheel and listens to his brother heave like he's trying to vomit up his lungs. It goes on and on, the wet sounds of vomiting replaced by the dry, painful rasp of dry heaving. Sam is gasping, sobbing. He sounds like he's suffocating.

Dean glances in the rear view mirror and sees the icy glow of Lucifer's opened cage, still brightening the low-hanging clouds over the convent. Panic clenches his guts, the sound of his brother's distress and the echoing roar of hell screaming through his brain. They can't stay here. They have to _go_.

Dean throws himself from the car and moves to the passenger side, boots sliding in the gravel as he rushes.

"Sam, up. _Now_," he barks, grabbing the back of Sam's jacket and pulling. Sam flops like a marionette, struggling for breath, but makes no move to get up.

"God damn it, Sam!" Dean shouts, pulling at the short strands of his own hair with desperate fingers. "We've got to go!"

Sam slumps back against the car for a moment, face washed out and gleaming with sweat. His lips look dusky. There is so much anguish in his eyes that Dean wants to turn away from it. Blood is smudged under his nose in a bold streak.

"Go," Sam rasps, struggling to his feet. He sways, unsteady and disoriented. "Go, Dean." He staggers away from the car a few steps and then just stands there. A fat tear rolls down his cheek and off his chin.

"What the hell are you talking about, Sam?" Dean shouts, stepping toward him. "Get in the fucking car! We don't have time for this!"

"You need to leave me," Sam says. His voice breaks on a breathy sound of pain when he says leave. "Run. G-get away."

"Fuck this," Dean hisses. He grabs the front of Sam's jacket in both hands and shoves him towards the open car door, fully intending to shove him inside and get the hell out of Dodge. But Sam fights back, twisting and struggling to free himself.

"No!" he cries, and the agony and fear in his voice send a chill down Dean's spine. "No, Dean, you've got to get away from me!"

"Sam…" Dean stops pushing but doesn't let go. Sam's hands clench in the sleeves of Dean's jacket, desperate and trembling.

"You've got to run," Sam cries. "I'm a monster, Dean. I'm a _monster_. Look at what I did! Oh, God, _I _did this! I killed everyone. I c-can't kill you too – you've got to run. Please, please… Dean, you've got to run."

Dean stares at his brother, lost, as precious seconds tick by. They both flinch when a clap of thunder explodes from the direction of the convent. Sam's face twists into a horrible image of despair and he makes a sound like a wounded animal. Dean can hear him even over the increasing wind, the horror in his voice as he whispers _I did this, I did this, oh, God, I did this.  
_  
A fresh trail of blood dribbles from Sam's nose, and Dean is suddenly suffused with rage so intense it makes his skin burn. All they've ever done is fight and sacrifice for this world. Their whole lives they've been burdened under the weight of duty to others. Now they've been crushed between heaven and hell, moved like pawn pieces on a board too vast for them to comprehend. Angels and demons have taken his good, kind-hearted brother and turned him into a weapon. They've managed to do what no other force in this world had ever managed – they've broken a brotherhood, wrecked the trust between them.

Compared to demons and angels, creatures that have existed through the entirety of humanity's stumbling, fucked up existence on this planet, he and Sam are just children. Babies, really, and it's almost laughable how outmanned they are by such powerful, ancient beings. They never stood a chance. Heaven and hell manipulated them for their own warped means, batting them back and forth between them like cats with a wounded mouse.

Everything had been leading them to this moment – plans set in motion before they were even born. How could they have ever hoped to fight it? How could Sam have ever hoped to outrun this sort of dark destiny? How could Dean hope to save him now?

He doesn't understand Sam anymore – the one person in this world that has always, always, made sense to him is now dark and indecipherable. There are secrets in his heart that Dean can't access. But he's staring at Dean with despair in his eyes, asking Dean to leave him behind, and Dean _can't_. He won't.

Sam thought he was doing good. He thought he was making just another sacrifice to save a world that doesn't even know he exists. Those bastards, that_bitch _Ruby, took the best things about Sam – his trust, his belief in redemption, his sense of justice – and manipulated them into tools for their own selfish use. They'd taken things that were sacred to Sam and destroyed him with them.

And Dean had helped.

Standing face to face with his brother on the side of a dark, deserted road, Dean can't help remembering other places, other words exchanged.

_If I didn't know you, I would wanna _hunt _you._

_I'm a whole new level of freak! And I'm just trying to take this - this curse... and make something good out of it. Because I have to._

_Nothing bad's gonna happen to you while I'm around._

"Dean, please, go," Sam is begging.

"No," Dean growls. He shoves Sam back, into the car, tries not to slam his brother's limbs when he swings the door shut. When he slides behind the wheel again, Sam is staring at him with something like shock and a dangerous hope. "I'm not leaving you," Dean says as they speed away from the shoulder.

Sam's face crumples in grief. His whole body shakes with sobs, like all the pain in his body is trying to leave through his chest. Dean reaches for him, pulls him down so that his face is pressed against Dean's ribs. Sam wraps his arms around Dean and shudders like he's coming apart, breath hot and desperate on Dean's hip as he chokes on his pain.

"I'm sorry, Dean, I'm so sorry," he wails. Dean holds him tighter. In the rear view, hell is lighting up the night sky and horror is spilling out into the world. His brother is broken, torn apart by his own need to do good. They have nowhere to go, no way to stop this. But Dean is done with letting the bastards crush them under their celestial heels like insects. He's going to get them somewhere safe and he's going to put his brother back together again. Then he's going to hunt down the bastards who did this to them and make them pay. It's time to finally put the blame where it belongs.

Dean doesn't forgive Sam, because this time there's nothing to forgive.

_fin_


End file.
